


hope when we found the bridge

by TheWrongKindOfPC



Series: ryan ross wrote some songs [4]
Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 16:37:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1083243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWrongKindOfPC/pseuds/TheWrongKindOfPC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem with writing autobiographically is that there are other people in your life, and they show up in your songs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hope when we found the bridge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lalejandra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalejandra/gifts).



> Title of course from TYV's "Defiance."
> 
> A few-weeks-old prompt ficlet for octette, reposted here for neatness, since I kind of like the idea of all these overwrought, emotional, canon-based Ryan&Spencer centered ficlets being collected in a series. Prompt was: "one of Ryan's songs is about Brendon not taking care of spencer. >__>"

It’s not one of the songs that gets leaked, and Ryan can’t breath for a second with relief, it’s bad enough that he’s written it at all, worse still that he’s recorded it, but to have it out there in the world and him not expecting it? Ryan can’t imagine anything worse.

“It’s not like people aren’t going to hear it eventually, man,” Alex says, which is true, but also awful, so Ryan decides not to answer him. Instead, he sits perched on the back of his couch, then lets himself collapse backwards till his neck is crunched at an awkward angle against the cushions, knees hooked over the top of the couch-back, feet dangling, kicking out an odd, off-tempo beat.

Alex looks up, laughs at him, then tosses the ball he was using to play with Knots at the side of Ryan’s head, and then his cat is attacking his face and Alex is laughing, and Ryan might be, too, a bit, because it’s better than thinking about how he’s betrayed Spencer in song, and he’s going to share that song with, ideally, rooms full of strangers.

Betrayal is all well and good, but its’ not a full-time job, not for Ryan, anyway, he keeps it for just a hobby, so he and Alex order in Chinese and Ryan fucks around on his acoustic for a bit, pokes around on instagram, alphabetizes his cereal boxes, and it’s almost four in the morning by the time he grits his teeth, turns on his computer, and attaches a single track to an email, hits send. Then, to avoid hitting the refresh button till he gets a reply, he drinks some Nyquil and passes out.

…

The reply, when it comes, is just one line: _it wasn’t his fault,_ and it’s so wonderfully, terribly _Spencer_ that Ryan doesn’t know how to reply, doesn’t know whether he wants to say _of course it was_ or _the point was that it was MY fault._ Neither is true, really, and Spencer would hate either answer about the same amount.

Instead, he, thinks a little, takes a moment to be glad they’re doing this via email, then replies _I felt kind of okay about leaving because he was there. I shouldn’t have,_ and then stops there, not sure how the sentence is meant to end. Shouldn’t have left? Or just should have felt more guilty? Ryan still doesn’t know. In the end, he closes his eyes and hits send, then revels in the momentary no-going-back satisfaction.

This time, he sits at the computer and waits for a reply, trying to pretend like he’s doing something else. An hour passes, then an hour and a half.

Nothing.

Then: _nice bridge, ross._


End file.
